Response for John Connell

In John Connell’s Post for a workshop at the BBC, he has asked ……..

How did you get into blogging?

• I was encouraged (Bullied?) by Andrew Brown (Then the Education Support Officer for ICT in Argyll & Bute)  I was, and still am, of the opinion that blog is far too often a personal Soapbox. Saw much more educational use for Wiki’s. I set up an initial blog in June 2006 but moved to this one in the November.

What were (are?) the motivations?

• Decided that I needed to record/broadcast what we were doing with our Schools of Ambition project.

How does your “private” blogging relate to your work?

• Private blogging is now done exclusively via twitter. I have had the occasional personal post in the blog but generally I am reflecting on what I and the school are doing.

How do you achieve a balance of personal voice and authority

• I am not sure I manage this or even if I want to. I am placing my voice and any authority I have is given from others. I think this community implied authority I consider far more real and important.

What can be achieved through blogging that can’t through ordinary news/reporting routes?

• How could a tiny school 2 hours from the mainland have had voice through ‘ordinary news/reporting routes’. It didn’t. Even today we are ‘too far’ for even the educational press to realise where we are. 

How do you follow other blogs and other forms of “public conversation”?

• I have 5 pages of feeds from a wide range of inputs, i.e. blogs, bbc, and technorati tag words but a load come via recommends in twitter.

How does your blog connect to others in a “conversation”?

• It has been the starting point for lots of conversations. Twitter is very conversational, Blog can have some feedback. The best example was the crowd sourced input to the discussion around the Education 2020 wiki This was much more than a conversation.

Are there other bloggers you follow especially, others you think are exemplars of the practice?

• Less now than did at the beginning. At first I had ‘experts’ that I looked too. Now, I find the tag feeds much more important. Though a couple of people provide regular, thought provoking inputs to my thought processes. Taking John as a given. Don Ledingham, though he has gone quite.

How do you feel about “lighter” practices such as Tweeting, facebook status updates etc…?

• These are vital sparks to deeper reflects on blog posts and crowd sourced wiki actions. They are like the ‘pub chats about big topics. They get your brain going but you have to remember this is out in the public domain